Hub and spoke, Static vs:rip

Howdy folks.
Recently started a new job and I'm a bit confused by their topology. The last admin left the company and left Zero documentation. Basically it's a hub and spoke topology with a main office and 18 retail locations. ALL routers are using static routes to each other and for the life of me I don't see the advantage of this.. If I remember correctly, RIP2 makes more sence. It's the first time I've seen 18 routers with 18 static routes on each router. It just looks messy, yet it is functional. Each site has only one subnet so I suppose while the network was just a few sites in size it was ok. yet, after 5 or 6 sites I would have used a routing protocol.

Is there a logical reason why a person would not have used RIP2 (given the size of the network)? None of the current IT staff has a clue to their topology or why its configured the way it is.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Find more posts tagged with

Free for TechExams community: Cybersecurity salary guide

Compare cert salaries and plan your next career move

Button

Comments

networker050184

I wouldn't use RIP unless you really need to. Like a legacy device that only supports RIP. I'd go with OSPF/EIGRP.

As far as why statics, a lot of the time thats all that people understand.

joe48184

networker050184 wrote: »

I wouldn't use RIP unless you really need to. Like a legacy device that only supports RIP. I'd go with OSPF/EIGRP.

As far as why statics, a lot of the time thats all that people understand.

I'm with ya there on the osfp, but always thought ospf was better suited for larger sites. The reason I'm "thinking" RIP2 is due to the older Sonicwall routers being used at the majority of the sites that appear to support RIP2 with no indication of supporting OSPF (they are quite old). I've managed to point out some of the oppertunities upgrading the infrastructure would provide, but I don't want to scare them so soon after starting the job

The main office has a Cisco 2900 so I'm hoping to leverage the brand for future upgrades.

My main concern is that I dont discount what someone else did due to my own ignorance. Thanks for your input, it is appreciated.

odysseyelite

joe48184 wrote: »

My main concern is that I dont discount what someone else did due to my own ignorance. Thanks for your input, it is appreciated.

You don't have to discredit what someone did in the past. You can go the route that times have changed and there are better ways of doing things. Maybe they had a small setup and it began to grow. Maybe they had a couple of people managing the network and they just decided to maintain it instead of using better pratices. Theres a reason why they hired you.

The best thing to do is document everything. From there you can write up proposals in a phase situation. This is where you have to go from being techie to business minded. You have to show the managers the ROI on upgrading.

networker050184

Kind of unrelated here, but something that has always interested me in a simple hub and spoke scenario is ODR. I'd probably never really use it, but its pretty cool.

Jollycork

joe48184 wrote: »

Howdy folks.
Recently started a new job and I'm a bit confused by their topology. The last admin left the company and left Zero documentation. Basically it's a hub and spoke topology with a main office and 18 retail locations. ALL routers are using static routes to each other and for the life of me I don't see the advantage of this.. If I remember correctly, RIP2 makes more sence. It's the first time I've seen 18 routers with 18 static routes on each router. It just looks messy, yet it is functional. Each site has only one subnet so I suppose while the network was just a few sites in size it was ok. yet, after 5 or 6 sites I would have used a routing protocol.

Is there a logical reason why a person would not have used RIP2 (given the size of the network)? None of the current IT staff has a clue to their topology or why its configured the way it is.

Thanks for your thoughts.

hum, if it's a retail environment in the US, I'd check what the links are.

dedicated links between sites makes sense [or MPLS/Frame Relay] in a retail environment where sales data is being sent.

Some retail operatings have special links for credit card payments that are required by the processing companies...

so there might be valid reasons for having static routes rather than using routing protocols ....

Ryuksapple84

Senior members like networker050184 can corect me on this but, could you not still use OSPF and set either a static route to the firewall or route redistribution?

I would go with ospf because it is more scalable then RIP, from my understanding.

RoutingLoop

You certainly can have a mix of static routes and dynamic routes from a routing protocol. Always remember to keep in mind Administrative Distance. The lower the better. Statics have an AD of 1 and will be preferred over the same route learned from EIGRP or OSPF.

Ryuksapple84 is correct, you can use statics for specific needs such as for a default route or to a router that is not participating in your routing protocol. In this specific case, OSPF or RIP would both work fine with OSPF being less "chatty" and thereby saving some WAN bandwidth. If its not an option however, RIP will do the trick.